SaintAngerBH wrote:John Cooper is just as flustered and confused as his team. You can hear it when they interview him on the bench.

The injuries on defense it's hard to overcome in the playoffs. Hedman, Stralman all missed games at the end of the season and in the playoffs.That's not to say there's not more problems with that team, no reason with that forward talent they should have gotten swept.

ToddM wrote:Note to risk-averse NHL GMs: Tampa did nothing at the deadline, because they were Already Perfect.

Ok, so what exactly should they have done? They were running at a historic level. Easy to try to say they should have done this or that now in hindsight, but point me to the move that would have put them over the top in this series. It's just hockey and hockey is weird sometimes.

I would have done absolutely nothing too. Where could they have improved?

I just hope this sends a message to chickenshit GMs on the other 30 teams because I like chaos and unpredictability.

The Columbus GM is looking like a genius right now.

~Marriage is like putting your hand into a bag of snakes in the hope of pulling out an eel.

cdanew wrote:Raise your hand if you had Columbus and the Islanders sweeping their first round series.

On a side note, Trotz is a pretty damn good coach.

I keep forgetting he Islanders are the higher seed all because of Pittsburgh’s history.

I got a ranch in downtown Dallas/I buy diamonds by the ton/Chase cuties in my Cadillac/Drill oil wells just for fun/But when it comes to boots, I need a deal/That will fit me right, toe to heel/So I get my boots at Western Warehouse.

SaintAngerBH wrote:John Cooper is just as flustered and confused as his team. You can hear it when they interview him on the bench.

The injuries on defense it's hard to overcome in the playoffs. Hedman, Stralman all missed games at the end of the season and in the playoffs.That's not to say there's not more problems with that team, no reason with that forward talent they should have gotten swept.

Also worth giving credit to the Jackets. They added a lot of talent and struggled for a bit to figure things out and looked to be on their way to missing the playoffs. Then they closed the season winning seven of the last eight with a combined 33 goals for to 8 goals against in those seven wins. Now they steamrolled the Bolts over four games.

Also time to retire the Duchene snark about him being a team killer. He had a great series.

I got a ranch in downtown Dallas/I buy diamonds by the ton/Chase cuties in my Cadillac/Drill oil wells just for fun/But when it comes to boots, I need a deal/That will fit me right, toe to heel/So I get my boots at Western Warehouse.

The rarest of all creatures: a GM who cares about winning over the "asset collection" most GMs use as a form of job security.

I got a ranch in downtown Dallas/I buy diamonds by the ton/Chase cuties in my Cadillac/Drill oil wells just for fun/But when it comes to boots, I need a deal/That will fit me right, toe to heel/So I get my boots at Western Warehouse.

Wonder if Karlsson's asking price is coming down. He had a pretty good regular season, especially as it went on, but his playoff performance so far is a bit rough. Yeah, he leads their defense with five assists in four games, but he also leads them by being a -5 thanks to being on the ice for 13 of Vegas's 18 goals scored.

By comparison, for the Stars Heiskanen "leads" the team by being on the ice for 4 of Nashville's 7 goals. Polak has only been on the ice for two goals against.

I got a ranch in downtown Dallas/I buy diamonds by the ton/Chase cuties in my Cadillac/Drill oil wells just for fun/But when it comes to boots, I need a deal/That will fit me right, toe to heel/So I get my boots at Western Warehouse.

Part of that equation is that Martin Jones really blows (I seem to remember some wise sage on this very board asking why the Sharks didn't pick up a goalie at the deadline), and Bishop "sucks" in the first game in two months where he surrendered more than two goals.

That's funny. His Puck Soup podcast with DownGoesBrown and another dude is also a good listen only because they spend half of each episode shitting on the league's stuffy and boring personalities like Crosby.

I got a ranch in downtown Dallas/I buy diamonds by the ton/Chase cuties in my Cadillac/Drill oil wells just for fun/But when it comes to boots, I need a deal/That will fit me right, toe to heel/So I get my boots at Western Warehouse.

There was a FiveThirtyEight article on the Tampa Bay Lightning before the playoffs talking about how by every conceivable metric they were the superior pick to go far and historically good. They did all the math and crunched all the numbers. And it didn't mean *poo poo*.

I don't really believe in the President's Trophy curse or anything like that, and I think that winning in the regular season is just fine. But my theory on them is definitely that they were somehow really unprepared for any adversity.

TB had a 3-0 lead in game 1. It just went downhill from there. Why they couldn't put a stop to that, who knows? Every year you can see the teams that were clicking going into the playoffs seem to have an advantage. TB didn't have to click since the season started practically.

B Kat wrote:TB had a 3-0 lead in game 1. It just went downhill from there. Why they couldn't put a stop to that, who knows? Every year you can see the teams that were clicking going into the playoffs seem to have an advantage. TB didn't have to click since the season started practically.

'Zactly. Columbus got a punch in and suddenly it was like the bully that finally gets punched back. Complete fold. Amazing.

The Frugal Gourmet wrote:I don't really believe in the President's Trophy curse or anything like that, and I think that winning in the regular season is just fine. But my theory on them is definitely that they were somehow really unprepared for any adversity.

Of all of the 16 places to finish the regular season, #1 remains the most likely to win the Cup.

I can't argue with your theory about Tampa coasting through the season. I also think people aren't giving enough attention to all of the moves Columbus made and how they started to gel right as they entered the playoffs. If the Blue Jackets had that full roster all season, they're probably division winners or contenders and not sneaking in as #8.

I got a ranch in downtown Dallas/I buy diamonds by the ton/Chase cuties in my Cadillac/Drill oil wells just for fun/But when it comes to boots, I need a deal/That will fit me right, toe to heel/So I get my boots at Western Warehouse.

Troy McClure wrote:That's funny. His Puck Soup podcast with DownGoesBrown and another dude is also a good listen only because they spend half of each episode shitting on the league's stuffy and boring personalities like Crosby.

Puck Soup is reliably hilarious. Ryan Lambert is the other guy, and they are all really funny. The Bettman impersonation cracks me up.